Arnold - I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on possible outcomes in regard to how the Dems are going to unbury themselves from this situation. Their ideology is coupled with racist and sexist beliefs of university professors. What will these professors do over the next four years? Are they gradually going to repent after decades of publishing racist and sexist garbage? What will happen to the universities going forward? How will Dems exit the academic cult they’ve created?
A snowball's chance in hell. At most a tiny minority on the fringes of the Democratic party will even question any of their beliefs as a result of this election, much less act on it. In their minds, the majority was duped into believing misinformation.
Most plausible is something similar to Trump last presidency. Those in the middle will mostly hold their nose and move toward Dems out of dislike of Trump. Republicans lose some seats in Congress in mid-term and probably lose more and Presidency in four.
It's possible but very unlikely Trump will stem that tide. The best hope for Republicans in four years is a charismatic Presidential nominee who can repudiate the worst aspects of the Trump presidency without totally pissing off loyal Trumpers.
As a female, if Haley got the nomination she might have the best chances. A bit of a longshot to get nominated. Tulsi Gabbard is a much bigger longshot and has more negatives to overcome. I don't know who else.
Revision. I forgot that Trump lost in 2020 almost completely due to COVID impact on economy. Maybe chances aren't as bad as I suggested in 2028. Still negative in 2026. 2028 depends on who each side nominates.
Okay. Seems reasonable. Let’s imagine the following scenario. In four years Trump is gone. Vance has had four years in the spotlight. He will probably be the nominee. What is the Democratic platform?
I would go with a "Dark Gavin" strategy to cut the most costly and abrasive clients loose and to focus on the marginal members of the opposing coalition. You would run on a legislative and not executive action platform to get the government out of student lending, to reduce the influence of universities on society, and to focus on retro-New Deal type programs to poach the most malleable members of the opposing coalition. I say "Dark Gavin" because you'd use the nihilism of someone like Newsom to execute the pivot. No one expects him to believe in anything so it would not be that jarring. This is not unlike what Clinton did to absorb a lot of the mojo left over from Reaganism. But Gavin's not as talented as Bill, and there is no class of people as talented as the Clinton network of henchmen, so it might be infeasible.
That is cynical and dark. :) But I really like the fact that you thought of it and said it! How many years until something like this might be successful?
Newsom could start now by putting the needles into the UC system using the SFFA decision as an excuse combined with his new vision for economic development. Also do what Youngkin did on trans sports to send the appropriate signal. Then you just need to cultivate friendships on Wall Street, promise the Treasury Sec. position to the right guy, and run in 2028. I think if he could reset the story on California by just changing its trajectory slightly, it'd make a big difference. Will they do this? No, because there are too many anti-meritocratic public commitments to ethno-gender jobbery.
Positive, hopeful, creative thought - Is this not an opportunity for libertarians, and conservatives, or some new political party to suggest a platform for the Dems? Are they ready to listen?
Why not start asking, “How can I help the Dems improve their platform?” I’m not saying this would be easy to do. It would be business as usual for libertarians and conservatives - a long, uphill road focused on teaching and learning.
Right now, it seems that the identity of the typical Dem is in ruins. How can we help them construct a healthier, more confident, more resilient, more tolerant, more just, and more genuinely liberal identity, that is more in-line with the classic liberal worldview?
What age groups would you want to focus on? I have to believe that a significant portion of Gen X in red counties came out to vote for Trump. These red and blue youngsters might be eager to learn. What do we have to offer them?
I was going to put this comment elsewhere but here seems better.
The best forecasters gravitate towards no change. The most likely future is very much like the current status. Dems go move less extreme, more extreme, or laterally in ways like you suggest. Predicting that is next to impossible. And minimal change is more likely than all the alternatives combined.
Something like the Supreme Court court ruling on gay marriage and the shift in views that followed, more so than either of the abortion rulings, is far less common and tends to be rather random.
Right. She had poor political skills and ran just like Hillary did in 2016 - SNL made the obvious joke that Walz and Kaine look like they could be brothers - and got Hillary-like results from lower enthusiasm than in 2020. The Democrats had a number of superior candidates they could have run, however, it seems like the decision to try for a second Biden term made it all but impossible to pick anyone else at the late stage in the game when the gamble failed and they could no longer cover up Biden's serious deterioration.
It seems that the one thing everyone on the left and right can agree on is to be mad in some way about the way Biden's state was more covered-up than covered in order to pursue his second term. With such unanimity one might think that those who contributed to that sham would be held accountable in some painful manner, but I'm not holding my breath.
It sounds like you are an exception to AK's claim about who believes what regarding why Harris lost. Me too. I'm not much a fan of Democratic party positions except Ukraine but I agree how Harris became the nominee hurt her chances significantly.
Right...but first, does that improve my status?.... just kidding....
Don't know nuthin' about exceptions. I only just found AK (and glad I did) a couple months ago and I'm feeling my way around in here. But, yeah...the whole thing had a stench ala the deep inside insiders deciding which way to go. Kinda like their non-prescient pick of Hillary as the standard bearer, ignoring a vast sea of American folks who were decidedly anti-Clinton. It's about as perfect an example of "we know what's best and you sit down and STFU" as I've seen in a while.
Exception. I meant that it sounds like your preferences and beliefs don't align with either of these if-thens.
"If you like the Democrats on policy, your if-only will emphasize special factors, such as Biden’s late withdrawal, or Harris’ missteps, like choosing Walz rather than Shapiro. If you don’t like the Democrats on policy, you will say that they lost because of the issues on which you disagree with them. The game is to emphasize an if-only that raises your own status."
Simple check of numbers raises some questions about the 2020 vote that was tallied for Biden. The "right-wing" punditry has noticed this. Will the centrists take note? If the 2020 Biden vote was not legitimate than that begs the question of the political narrative of the past 4 years.
Well, maybe the numbers are not so simple. My initial checks show that enthusiasm for Trump was much greater in 2024 than in 2020, and enthusiasm for the Harris slightly trails that for Biden.
It is just hard to fathom that Biden generated so much voter enthusiasm when he did not campaign! The media and party energy to "get out to vote" was as high in 2024 as it was four years ago. Apparently people in 2024 did get out to vote in very large numbers and more of them voted for Trump than in 2020. And perhaps the simple explanation is Harris lost votes relative to Biden because she is a lightweight candidate.
I like the reconsideration you make here and largely agree.
One thing to add. Trump almost certainly would have won in 2020 if COVID hadn't happened. The economy was in really bad shape leading up to the election. That anomaly probably explains what you label enthusiasm.
I had a hunch that the absence of pandemic in 2024 would greatly boost Trump's vote. The pandemic caused Trump to take a lot of criticism due to the friction that developed between him and the Covid Task Force. Add to this that Biden and his media allies were spinning the tale that they would handle Covid better. For the uninformed voter, the Covid spin was significant in steering votes to Biden - so much so that he did not need to campaign.
I am confident that vote totals in 2020 were elevated due to states liberally printing and mailing ballots, and party organizers harvesting those ballots. And I believe the Democrats were more successful at ballot harvesting in 2020.
So why do ballot totals remain elevated? Maybe it is because people feel the election consequences are more important than ever before. Maybe it is because voting is easier than ever before. I do think the GOP did a better job this year monitoring and responding to election anomalies and regulating drop boxes. And yet even with this stricter monitoring it appears total ballot counts will be similar if not higher than in 2020.
I don't know a reason to think the voting process was significantly different in the two elections, though an increased availability of mail-in probably boosted voting both times. I see more reason to wonder if the handling of COVID was an issue but I don't think it was significant. I think the economic issues in the six months before the vote dwarf other factors.
The three bars being compared are actually 66, 66, and 67. That's a little closer to Biden's total but doesn't really change much. The bigger question is why Trump got less votes this time vs four years ago.
The win was so large it's hard to imagining any one weird trick changing it.
You can go out and find all sorts of mistakes on the DEM side, but a lot of them are just "who they are." Like, sure its a mistake not to go on Rogan, but Kamala isn't the kind of person who could talk to another human being for three hours and Kamala is basically an avatar for the modern Democratic Party (they literally got to try two candidates).
Probably the best chance they had was to leave Trump alone. The law fare backfired tremendously. They even funded MAGA in 2022 to cynically grab a few seats. So the problem starts long before the campaign even began. But again, that's just kind of who they are right now.
The "who they are" is going to have to change, not just lipstick on a pig.
I don't think Trump will have the discipline or motivation to make any real changes to any of those agencies. More likely you'll get some symbolic gestures, like the transgender troop ban from his previous term.
It's not about what he does; it's about what the people who are appointed to critical positions do. Trump and his transition team have a serious challenge now in identifying the competent people who share his vision and hopefully, but probably not, weeding out the useless sycophants who have no inside knowledge of government.
"This is more likely to happen if the progressives keep quiet (which they won’t)." Spot on. Recall Pelosi ripping up the text of Trump's SOTU speech on the dais immediately after he delivered it, in February 2020. Taking the high road ain't in the playbook.
I think in general Tyler's #6 is underweighted. The single female feminization of the Democratic party either led to or exacerbated at least half of his other points. And Trump actually won the White suburban female vote this time. Catering to single (especially white) females has distorted much of the rest of the Dem Party's message and policies.
“ And Trump actually won the White suburban female vote this time.”
Do you have any data backing up this claim?
I have no doubt he won married women, and of course more women in the suburbs are married, but he lost single women by SUCH big margins I’m dubious of your claim about the white suburban female vote, especially given that the college educated vote moved left and that describes a large chunk of suburban women.
Patrick Ruffini posted it from some exit polls. White suburban women broke for Trump 51-47, white sburban men Trump 61-37. Sorry but I don't remember which poll he said he used. That was from early this mornig.
I remember that NPR was saying that Harris was running about 4 points behind Biden, but I don't remember if they gave numbers.
And I dont have data for how many single women of any race live in the suburbs, but Black women in general tend to vote about 95-5 for Democrats. Some single Black women must live in the suburbs.
If Harris won all women by 10 points, and Black women made up about 14% of the women's vote (I don't know about Latino/Hispanic women, but I think I read they went about 65-35 Harris and made up about 12% of the women's vote), then Trump must have won white women's total vote by something like 43-36. So winning suburban women 51-47 at least seems likely.
I'll see if I can dig out crosstabs somewhere.
Anyway , since Reagan in 1984 won a majority of all women's votes but by less than he won mens votes there has been talk about the "gender gap" but that, too has been driven by that 95-5 Black female vote.
Well, I taught a poli sci course, off and on, Campaigns and Elections, for 25 years. We always discussed the likely supporters by groups in national campaigns. Since 1984 Republicans won the "all but Black women" women's vote more often than not. That always came up in the discussion of the "gender gap" which just about every text used un the course mentioned. It's a good way to get students to dig deeper.
I would have been more impressed with Trump if he hsd managed to win 15% of the Black women's vote. That would be a real game-changer and probably signal a realignment.
My students usually made or bought the argument that young single women and Black women see the government as a substitute for a father or husband. I'm not so sure about that, but it sounds plausible.
I think personal authenticity is a powerful characteristic, at least in this cycle. Like him or not, Trump is his authentic self - even when he's lying! We still don't know Harris' true self, and that was a mortal wound, IMHO. Compare both to Fetterman, who also is quite authentic in his presentation of self. If I was a Dem power broker, that's who I'd be looking at for 2028
I used to think, win or lose in 2024, DeSantis in 2028. Now, it could easily be JD Vance, if Trump is successful. My third vote for Trump -- Success! maybe--he's still a braggart, but at least often humorous (#17). Not like the joy-less childless cat ladies dominating the Dems (Tyler#6).
Illegal immigration (kinda #12, Tyler cowardly fails to mention ILLEGAL) was as important positive for Trump as abortion (not applicable) was negative.
Biden-Harris inflation was & is terrible, and is the fault of Dems, as will be seen with much lower inflation by Trump, similar high deficits & govt borrowing, but far more US supply (lowering prices) & more US jobs for citizens, probably at higher wages.
Arnold claims, like for 20 years (with my belief for maybe 10 of those years) "The day will come when the Federal government can no longer keep running up the debt."
Japan's 250% debt/gdp ratio seems to falsify this theory, making it almost a superstition. Only after Japan faces a debt-crisis will the USA face a crisis, tho it might be the next week. With plenty of food, there will be no starvation+hyperinflation.
I'd guess Trump national votes to be around 74 million, close to his 2020 total. With Kamala about 72 million, some 13 million less than Dems in 2020. This is strong evidence, to me, of 2020 mail-in cheating. Those like Arnold & Dan Williams who claim, without evidence, that there was no significant cheating in 2020 can continue to claim it, but it's based on the presumption of "fair elections"; like with OJ, fraud only if Beyond Reasonable Doubt. Yet there is a preponderance of evidence, including Intel Agency lying about H. Biden's laptop, to reject the claim that 2020 was Free and Fair ... instead thus stolen.
Very much YES to "It’s the Intelligence Agencies, stupid". They need to be thoroughly cleaned out. Burned to the ground, losing institutional memory, might well be worth the cleaning needed. Should be 2 additional parts, one of all Republicans who investigate Dems and other govt agencies, one of all Democrats who investigate Reps and other govt agencies.
And, Thank God, maybe Israel will be allowed to WIN in their war against Hamas. Possibly even Hezbollah.
Vance "is very intelligent. I bet he had a two-standard-deviation IQ advantage over Harris or Walz. Note that this does not make me a fan of Vance." Why on earth not be a fan, what am I missing?
Oh, puh-leeze. This is as blindly and stupidly partisan as the lefties who used to say George W. Bush was dumb. Harris and Walz are almost certainly 115 or above. But sometimes the easiest people to fool themselves are the smart ones.
Agreed. I might put the cutoff closer to 100 but either or both could easily be WAY higher. I'm far less certain about Walz but I'd take a bet on the side of Harris being over 120.
I don’t know, I would expect her to be more able to talk smoothly rather than word salad if she was high IQ. She might still be bullshitting, but usually very smart people are able to make their bullshit seem coherent, not just a mess of “the words you are supposed to say” strung together. Kamala comes across like my 6 year old trying to express sudden ideas off the cuff.
More hyperbole than sarcasm perhaps . . . and not to be taken entirely literally . . . although maybe seriously. I have edited out the offending sentence, so as not to rub salt in any open wounds. It is time for Magananimity
“But otherwise, Vance will have a good chance of retaining Mr. Trump’s voters. He is very intelligent. I bet he had a two-standard-deviation IQ advantage over Harris or Walz. Note that this does not make me a fan of Vance.”
Let me start by stating that I do not necessarily think Arnold is wrong here. I even lean towards agreeing.
But this is clearly an “elitist” way of thinking. Basically “that idiot Trump will do what he does, but he’s a populist idiot. But Vance is intelligent, which means both a) it is shameful that he takes the positions that he does, and b) he’s a lot more dangerous than Trump.”
Quibble with my wording, but that’s basically what Arnold is saying. And I find it striking coming from Arnold given that, like me, he despises elitist authoritarianism (the soft form most associated with the Western left. Everyone reasonable proclaims that - and perhaps even believes - they despise hardcore authoritarianism).
Yes, Vance likely does have a MUCH higher IQ than Harris or Walz. But implicit in AK’s comment is that Vance is a lot higher IQ than Trump. That may or may not be true, and it may or may not be relevant.
But where Trump “talks stupid” along the lines of other general election winners like W Bush, Reagan, Biden and unlike eloquent elitists like Mondale, Kerry or Obama (IMO it is not a coincidence that Obama is the only one of these who won a Presidential general election; in all other cases the candidate who “talked stupid-er” defeated the one who talked like Kerry), we high IQ folks don’t have to take him seriously, or at least it’s fine to disdain his views and competence.
But Vance, OTOH, should be feared as the evil genius supervillain.
Yes I dislike Vance’s views on foreign trade and tarrifs, and I like AK am anti-populism (in terms of policy) and concerned he not become successful with those policies and lead the far-lesser-evil of the two major parties down a bad for the country, bad for the world path of highly suboptimal economics.
But the implicit contrast between Trump and Vance, and the elitist focus on Vance as the new evil (a la Dick Cheney) to be feared by classical liberals / neoliberals / centrists of good faith, seems to me to already be starting and already likely be overblown.
You do not know me very well. I do not see Vance as a supervillain. But I think he is wrong-headed on many things. Pretending that we can or should head in the direction of the 1950s, for example. I have worked in a factory, and it involved handling dangerous materials that are associated with causing cancer. I don't romanticize that job.
Maybe, if cooking my own dinner counts as economic activity, we might even get a little economic activity going with efforts at reducing the danger or the externalities of manufacturing ... unless all that sort of thing is forfeit to us now.
It is true I don’t know you very well. And partly I am putting into your words some of what I have seen others write.
I have read you for months now. I’m pretty sure I agree with you on most things. Including even mostly on this.
I completely agree re: the reality of a return to the 1950s would be bad and at any rate unachievable. And I completely agree that the mercantilist trade policies he appears to advocate would be bad.
Where I likely cut him more slack than you and most re: most of his words is because most of them have come in the context of a politician trying to get elected. His and Trump’s populist rhetoric is in large part identical to Bill Clinton’s “I feel your pain.” The point re: taking Trump seriously but not literally imo *somewhat* applies to Vance. Not as much, I concur, but somewhat. We almost never hold Democrats to the same standard re: their rhetoric.
All that said, at the risk of repeating myself, it was your mention of Vance’s relative *intelligence* towering above Harris’/Walz’, while not mentioning Trump’s at all but to my reading clearly implying by omission that it was similarly below Vance’s as well, that was the primary thing that prompted my comment.
I.e. Vance as “evil genius” while the others are just stupid incompetents (at least where their policies are wrong).
My apologies at least in part for putting words in your mouth. But I find the conversation here useful.
P.S. the one bit of fodder for the “fear Vance” angle that I do indeed find worrisome is this piece (found by David Friedman but posted only in the comments section of one of his Vance pieces) where he’s dissing Milton Friedman: https://americanmind.org/memo/end-the-globalization-gravy-train/
Would I think that the worst policy tradeoff ever? No (putting aside the very real issue of having added a new tax rather than having a constitutional amendment that replaces the one with the other).
But depending on how “modest” said tariff was - in addition to the very real concern that like Europe’s VAT it would likely grow over time - such taxes are inefficient relative to just taxing income or consumption.
Now a theoretical win-win that is even less likely to happen in real life is to make the tariff much more like a VAT and only have it apply to final consumer goods and not intermediate producer goods. Do THAT and I’d be willing accept your tradeoff (whether it was perfect or not).
In a big way that's become the difference between the left and the right. Elon obviously builds, but you could do Florida vs CA for high speed rail. Or most critically, houses.
J.S. Mill wrote: "He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that." Progressive elites *know little of their own side of the case* because they are 'partially' educated. They never had to reckon deeply with conservatives or populists at university because Faculty in history and in the social sciences are mostly progressive.
Progressive elites then naturally incline toward technocracy and echo-chambers in journalism. Is it any wonder, then, that progressives struggle to engineer a candidate who can prevail over a flawed but formidable populist?
Did progressive elites even ask themselves: "How may we persuade conservatives or 'uneducated' persons in the street that we respect them and want to do our level best to understand and answer their case?"
Arnold - I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on possible outcomes in regard to how the Dems are going to unbury themselves from this situation. Their ideology is coupled with racist and sexist beliefs of university professors. What will these professors do over the next four years? Are they gradually going to repent after decades of publishing racist and sexist garbage? What will happen to the universities going forward? How will Dems exit the academic cult they’ve created?
A snowball's chance in hell. At most a tiny minority on the fringes of the Democratic party will even question any of their beliefs as a result of this election, much less act on it. In their minds, the majority was duped into believing misinformation.
So, assuming you’re right, what are some plausible outcomes?
Most plausible is something similar to Trump last presidency. Those in the middle will mostly hold their nose and move toward Dems out of dislike of Trump. Republicans lose some seats in Congress in mid-term and probably lose more and Presidency in four.
It's possible but very unlikely Trump will stem that tide. The best hope for Republicans in four years is a charismatic Presidential nominee who can repudiate the worst aspects of the Trump presidency without totally pissing off loyal Trumpers.
As a female, if Haley got the nomination she might have the best chances. A bit of a longshot to get nominated. Tulsi Gabbard is a much bigger longshot and has more negatives to overcome. I don't know who else.
Revision. I forgot that Trump lost in 2020 almost completely due to COVID impact on economy. Maybe chances aren't as bad as I suggested in 2028. Still negative in 2026. 2028 depends on who each side nominates.
Okay. Seems reasonable. Let’s imagine the following scenario. In four years Trump is gone. Vance has had four years in the spotlight. He will probably be the nominee. What is the Democratic platform?
I am wondering about the D platform as well.
I would go with a "Dark Gavin" strategy to cut the most costly and abrasive clients loose and to focus on the marginal members of the opposing coalition. You would run on a legislative and not executive action platform to get the government out of student lending, to reduce the influence of universities on society, and to focus on retro-New Deal type programs to poach the most malleable members of the opposing coalition. I say "Dark Gavin" because you'd use the nihilism of someone like Newsom to execute the pivot. No one expects him to believe in anything so it would not be that jarring. This is not unlike what Clinton did to absorb a lot of the mojo left over from Reaganism. But Gavin's not as talented as Bill, and there is no class of people as talented as the Clinton network of henchmen, so it might be infeasible.
That is cynical and dark. :) But I really like the fact that you thought of it and said it! How many years until something like this might be successful?
Newsom could start now by putting the needles into the UC system using the SFFA decision as an excuse combined with his new vision for economic development. Also do what Youngkin did on trans sports to send the appropriate signal. Then you just need to cultivate friendships on Wall Street, promise the Treasury Sec. position to the right guy, and run in 2028. I think if he could reset the story on California by just changing its trajectory slightly, it'd make a big difference. Will they do this? No, because there are too many anti-meritocratic public commitments to ethno-gender jobbery.
Positive, hopeful, creative thought - Is this not an opportunity for libertarians, and conservatives, or some new political party to suggest a platform for the Dems? Are they ready to listen?
Why not start asking, “How can I help the Dems improve their platform?” I’m not saying this would be easy to do. It would be business as usual for libertarians and conservatives - a long, uphill road focused on teaching and learning.
Right now, it seems that the identity of the typical Dem is in ruins. How can we help them construct a healthier, more confident, more resilient, more tolerant, more just, and more genuinely liberal identity, that is more in-line with the classic liberal worldview?
What age groups would you want to focus on? I have to believe that a significant portion of Gen X in red counties came out to vote for Trump. These red and blue youngsters might be eager to learn. What do we have to offer them?
I was going to put this comment elsewhere but here seems better.
The best forecasters gravitate towards no change. The most likely future is very much like the current status. Dems go move less extreme, more extreme, or laterally in ways like you suggest. Predicting that is next to impossible. And minimal change is more likely than all the alternatives combined.
Something like the Supreme Court court ruling on gay marriage and the shift in views that followed, more so than either of the abortion rulings, is far less common and tends to be rather random.
My "if-only" would have been someone other than Harris, determined by delegates voting at the convention.
Does that improve my status?
Right. She had poor political skills and ran just like Hillary did in 2016 - SNL made the obvious joke that Walz and Kaine look like they could be brothers - and got Hillary-like results from lower enthusiasm than in 2020. The Democrats had a number of superior candidates they could have run, however, it seems like the decision to try for a second Biden term made it all but impossible to pick anyone else at the late stage in the game when the gamble failed and they could no longer cover up Biden's serious deterioration.
It seems that the one thing everyone on the left and right can agree on is to be mad in some way about the way Biden's state was more covered-up than covered in order to pursue his second term. With such unanimity one might think that those who contributed to that sham would be held accountable in some painful manner, but I'm not holding my breath.
It sounds like you are an exception to AK's claim about who believes what regarding why Harris lost. Me too. I'm not much a fan of Democratic party positions except Ukraine but I agree how Harris became the nominee hurt her chances significantly.
Right...but first, does that improve my status?.... just kidding....
Don't know nuthin' about exceptions. I only just found AK (and glad I did) a couple months ago and I'm feeling my way around in here. But, yeah...the whole thing had a stench ala the deep inside insiders deciding which way to go. Kinda like their non-prescient pick of Hillary as the standard bearer, ignoring a vast sea of American folks who were decidedly anti-Clinton. It's about as perfect an example of "we know what's best and you sit down and STFU" as I've seen in a while.
Exception. I meant that it sounds like your preferences and beliefs don't align with either of these if-thens.
"If you like the Democrats on policy, your if-only will emphasize special factors, such as Biden’s late withdrawal, or Harris’ missteps, like choosing Walz rather than Shapiro. If you don’t like the Democrats on policy, you will say that they lost because of the issues on which you disagree with them. The game is to emphasize an if-only that raises your own status."
I don't think people elected Trump to balance the budget Arnold
Simple check of numbers raises some questions about the 2020 vote that was tallied for Biden. The "right-wing" punditry has noticed this. Will the centrists take note? If the 2020 Biden vote was not legitimate than that begs the question of the political narrative of the past 4 years.
Can you be more specific on your simple check?
Well, maybe the numbers are not so simple. My initial checks show that enthusiasm for Trump was much greater in 2024 than in 2020, and enthusiasm for the Harris slightly trails that for Biden.
It is just hard to fathom that Biden generated so much voter enthusiasm when he did not campaign! The media and party energy to "get out to vote" was as high in 2024 as it was four years ago. Apparently people in 2024 did get out to vote in very large numbers and more of them voted for Trump than in 2020. And perhaps the simple explanation is Harris lost votes relative to Biden because she is a lightweight candidate.
I like the reconsideration you make here and largely agree.
One thing to add. Trump almost certainly would have won in 2020 if COVID hadn't happened. The economy was in really bad shape leading up to the election. That anomaly probably explains what you label enthusiasm.
I had a hunch that the absence of pandemic in 2024 would greatly boost Trump's vote. The pandemic caused Trump to take a lot of criticism due to the friction that developed between him and the Covid Task Force. Add to this that Biden and his media allies were spinning the tale that they would handle Covid better. For the uninformed voter, the Covid spin was significant in steering votes to Biden - so much so that he did not need to campaign.
I am confident that vote totals in 2020 were elevated due to states liberally printing and mailing ballots, and party organizers harvesting those ballots. And I believe the Democrats were more successful at ballot harvesting in 2020.
So why do ballot totals remain elevated? Maybe it is because people feel the election consequences are more important than ever before. Maybe it is because voting is easier than ever before. I do think the GOP did a better job this year monitoring and responding to election anomalies and regulating drop boxes. And yet even with this stricter monitoring it appears total ballot counts will be similar if not higher than in 2020.
I don't know a reason to think the voting process was significantly different in the two elections, though an increased availability of mail-in probably boosted voting both times. I see more reason to wonder if the handling of COVID was an issue but I don't think it was significant. I think the economic issues in the six months before the vote dwarf other factors.
https://nitter.poast.org/zerohedge/status/1854144250562429081#m
Thanks.
The three bars being compared are actually 66, 66, and 67. That's a little closer to Biden's total but doesn't really change much. The bigger question is why Trump got less votes this time vs four years ago.
The win was so large it's hard to imagining any one weird trick changing it.
You can go out and find all sorts of mistakes on the DEM side, but a lot of them are just "who they are." Like, sure its a mistake not to go on Rogan, but Kamala isn't the kind of person who could talk to another human being for three hours and Kamala is basically an avatar for the modern Democratic Party (they literally got to try two candidates).
Probably the best chance they had was to leave Trump alone. The law fare backfired tremendously. They even funded MAGA in 2022 to cynically grab a few seats. So the problem starts long before the campaign even began. But again, that's just kind of who they are right now.
The "who they are" is going to have to change, not just lipstick on a pig.
I don't think Trump will have the discipline or motivation to make any real changes to any of those agencies. More likely you'll get some symbolic gestures, like the transgender troop ban from his previous term.
I think in his first term he supposed that the deep state was an obstacle but not the active enemy that they turned out to be.
It's not about what he does; it's about what the people who are appointed to critical positions do. Trump and his transition team have a serious challenge now in identifying the competent people who share his vision and hopefully, but probably not, weeding out the useless sycophants who have no inside knowledge of government.
I hope you are wrong but fear you are right.
"This is more likely to happen if the progressives keep quiet (which they won’t)." Spot on. Recall Pelosi ripping up the text of Trump's SOTU speech on the dais immediately after he delivered it, in February 2020. Taking the high road ain't in the playbook.
I think in general Tyler's #6 is underweighted. The single female feminization of the Democratic party either led to or exacerbated at least half of his other points. And Trump actually won the White suburban female vote this time. Catering to single (especially white) females has distorted much of the rest of the Dem Party's message and policies.
“ And Trump actually won the White suburban female vote this time.”
Do you have any data backing up this claim?
I have no doubt he won married women, and of course more women in the suburbs are married, but he lost single women by SUCH big margins I’m dubious of your claim about the white suburban female vote, especially given that the college educated vote moved left and that describes a large chunk of suburban women.
Very few single white women live in suburbs.
Patrick Ruffini posted it from some exit polls. White suburban women broke for Trump 51-47, white sburban men Trump 61-37. Sorry but I don't remember which poll he said he used. That was from early this mornig.
I remember that NPR was saying that Harris was running about 4 points behind Biden, but I don't remember if they gave numbers.
And I dont have data for how many single women of any race live in the suburbs, but Black women in general tend to vote about 95-5 for Democrats. Some single Black women must live in the suburbs.
And this Guardian article certainly implies white wome in general voted for Trump. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/06/election-trump-harris-women-voters
If Harris won all women by 10 points, and Black women made up about 14% of the women's vote (I don't know about Latino/Hispanic women, but I think I read they went about 65-35 Harris and made up about 12% of the women's vote), then Trump must have won white women's total vote by something like 43-36. So winning suburban women 51-47 at least seems likely.
I'll see if I can dig out crosstabs somewhere.
Anyway , since Reagan in 1984 won a majority of all women's votes but by less than he won mens votes there has been talk about the "gender gap" but that, too has been driven by that 95-5 Black female vote.
Thanks.
Apparently you are probably correct, even for white women overall:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls
This exit poll says white women voted 53-45 for Trump.
Well, I taught a poli sci course, off and on, Campaigns and Elections, for 25 years. We always discussed the likely supporters by groups in national campaigns. Since 1984 Republicans won the "all but Black women" women's vote more often than not. That always came up in the discussion of the "gender gap" which just about every text used un the course mentioned. It's a good way to get students to dig deeper.
I would have been more impressed with Trump if he hsd managed to win 15% of the Black women's vote. That would be a real game-changer and probably signal a realignment.
My students usually made or bought the argument that young single women and Black women see the government as a substitute for a father or husband. I'm not so sure about that, but it sounds plausible.
I think personal authenticity is a powerful characteristic, at least in this cycle. Like him or not, Trump is his authentic self - even when he's lying! We still don't know Harris' true self, and that was a mortal wound, IMHO. Compare both to Fetterman, who also is quite authentic in his presentation of self. If I was a Dem power broker, that's who I'd be looking at for 2028
I used to think, win or lose in 2024, DeSantis in 2028. Now, it could easily be JD Vance, if Trump is successful. My third vote for Trump -- Success! maybe--he's still a braggart, but at least often humorous (#17). Not like the joy-less childless cat ladies dominating the Dems (Tyler#6).
Illegal immigration (kinda #12, Tyler cowardly fails to mention ILLEGAL) was as important positive for Trump as abortion (not applicable) was negative.
Biden-Harris inflation was & is terrible, and is the fault of Dems, as will be seen with much lower inflation by Trump, similar high deficits & govt borrowing, but far more US supply (lowering prices) & more US jobs for citizens, probably at higher wages.
Arnold claims, like for 20 years (with my belief for maybe 10 of those years) "The day will come when the Federal government can no longer keep running up the debt."
Japan's 250% debt/gdp ratio seems to falsify this theory, making it almost a superstition. Only after Japan faces a debt-crisis will the USA face a crisis, tho it might be the next week. With plenty of food, there will be no starvation+hyperinflation.
I'd guess Trump national votes to be around 74 million, close to his 2020 total. With Kamala about 72 million, some 13 million less than Dems in 2020. This is strong evidence, to me, of 2020 mail-in cheating. Those like Arnold & Dan Williams who claim, without evidence, that there was no significant cheating in 2020 can continue to claim it, but it's based on the presumption of "fair elections"; like with OJ, fraud only if Beyond Reasonable Doubt. Yet there is a preponderance of evidence, including Intel Agency lying about H. Biden's laptop, to reject the claim that 2020 was Free and Fair ... instead thus stolen.
Very much YES to "It’s the Intelligence Agencies, stupid". They need to be thoroughly cleaned out. Burned to the ground, losing institutional memory, might well be worth the cleaning needed. Should be 2 additional parts, one of all Republicans who investigate Dems and other govt agencies, one of all Democrats who investigate Reps and other govt agencies.
And, Thank God, maybe Israel will be allowed to WIN in their war against Hamas. Possibly even Hezbollah.
Vance "is very intelligent. I bet he had a two-standard-deviation IQ advantage over Harris or Walz. Note that this does not make me a fan of Vance." Why on earth not be a fan, what am I missing?
Oh, puh-leeze. This is as blindly and stupidly partisan as the lefties who used to say George W. Bush was dumb. Harris and Walz are almost certainly 115 or above. But sometimes the easiest people to fool themselves are the smart ones.
(Or was this just satirical humor?)
Agreed. I might put the cutoff closer to 100 but either or both could easily be WAY higher. I'm far less certain about Walz but I'd take a bet on the side of Harris being over 120.
I don’t know, I would expect her to be more able to talk smoothly rather than word salad if she was high IQ. She might still be bullshitting, but usually very smart people are able to make their bullshit seem coherent, not just a mess of “the words you are supposed to say” strung together. Kamala comes across like my 6 year old trying to express sudden ideas off the cuff.
More hyperbole than sarcasm perhaps . . . and not to be taken entirely literally . . . although maybe seriously. I have edited out the offending sentence, so as not to rub salt in any open wounds. It is time for Magananimity
Harris could never pick Shapiro. She could not have the undercard outshine her.
“But otherwise, Vance will have a good chance of retaining Mr. Trump’s voters. He is very intelligent. I bet he had a two-standard-deviation IQ advantage over Harris or Walz. Note that this does not make me a fan of Vance.”
Let me start by stating that I do not necessarily think Arnold is wrong here. I even lean towards agreeing.
But this is clearly an “elitist” way of thinking. Basically “that idiot Trump will do what he does, but he’s a populist idiot. But Vance is intelligent, which means both a) it is shameful that he takes the positions that he does, and b) he’s a lot more dangerous than Trump.”
Quibble with my wording, but that’s basically what Arnold is saying. And I find it striking coming from Arnold given that, like me, he despises elitist authoritarianism (the soft form most associated with the Western left. Everyone reasonable proclaims that - and perhaps even believes - they despise hardcore authoritarianism).
Yes, Vance likely does have a MUCH higher IQ than Harris or Walz. But implicit in AK’s comment is that Vance is a lot higher IQ than Trump. That may or may not be true, and it may or may not be relevant.
But where Trump “talks stupid” along the lines of other general election winners like W Bush, Reagan, Biden and unlike eloquent elitists like Mondale, Kerry or Obama (IMO it is not a coincidence that Obama is the only one of these who won a Presidential general election; in all other cases the candidate who “talked stupid-er” defeated the one who talked like Kerry), we high IQ folks don’t have to take him seriously, or at least it’s fine to disdain his views and competence.
But Vance, OTOH, should be feared as the evil genius supervillain.
Yes I dislike Vance’s views on foreign trade and tarrifs, and I like AK am anti-populism (in terms of policy) and concerned he not become successful with those policies and lead the far-lesser-evil of the two major parties down a bad for the country, bad for the world path of highly suboptimal economics.
But the implicit contrast between Trump and Vance, and the elitist focus on Vance as the new evil (a la Dick Cheney) to be feared by classical liberals / neoliberals / centrists of good faith, seems to me to already be starting and already likely be overblown.
You do not know me very well. I do not see Vance as a supervillain. But I think he is wrong-headed on many things. Pretending that we can or should head in the direction of the 1950s, for example. I have worked in a factory, and it involved handling dangerous materials that are associated with causing cancer. I don't romanticize that job.
That's a strawman. Nobody advocates building factories with 1950s technology just because that employs more people.
Maybe, if cooking my own dinner counts as economic activity, we might even get a little economic activity going with efforts at reducing the danger or the externalities of manufacturing ... unless all that sort of thing is forfeit to us now.
It is true I don’t know you very well. And partly I am putting into your words some of what I have seen others write.
I have read you for months now. I’m pretty sure I agree with you on most things. Including even mostly on this.
I completely agree re: the reality of a return to the 1950s would be bad and at any rate unachievable. And I completely agree that the mercantilist trade policies he appears to advocate would be bad.
Where I likely cut him more slack than you and most re: most of his words is because most of them have come in the context of a politician trying to get elected. His and Trump’s populist rhetoric is in large part identical to Bill Clinton’s “I feel your pain.” The point re: taking Trump seriously but not literally imo *somewhat* applies to Vance. Not as much, I concur, but somewhat. We almost never hold Democrats to the same standard re: their rhetoric.
All that said, at the risk of repeating myself, it was your mention of Vance’s relative *intelligence* towering above Harris’/Walz’, while not mentioning Trump’s at all but to my reading clearly implying by omission that it was similarly below Vance’s as well, that was the primary thing that prompted my comment.
I.e. Vance as “evil genius” while the others are just stupid incompetents (at least where their policies are wrong).
My apologies at least in part for putting words in your mouth. But I find the conversation here useful.
P.S. the one bit of fodder for the “fear Vance” angle that I do indeed find worrisome is this piece (found by David Friedman but posted only in the comments section of one of his Vance pieces) where he’s dissing Milton Friedman: https://americanmind.org/memo/end-the-globalization-gravy-train/
If Vance implemented a modest tariff and used it to eliminate income taxes on the first 100k of income, would you hate him?
Would I hate him? No.
Would I think that the worst policy tradeoff ever? No (putting aside the very real issue of having added a new tax rather than having a constitutional amendment that replaces the one with the other).
But depending on how “modest” said tariff was - in addition to the very real concern that like Europe’s VAT it would likely grow over time - such taxes are inefficient relative to just taxing income or consumption.
Now a theoretical win-win that is even less likely to happen in real life is to make the tariff much more like a VAT and only have it apply to final consumer goods and not intermediate producer goods. Do THAT and I’d be willing accept your tradeoff (whether it was perfect or not).
Just before midnight Elon Musk sent this tweet.
"America is a nation of builders
Soon, you will be free to build"
In a big way that's become the difference between the left and the right. Elon obviously builds, but you could do Florida vs CA for high speed rail. Or most critically, houses.
Housing Starts/Million Pop
State 2019 2023 % Change 2024
NC 6,571 9,429 43% Trump + 3
Florida 7,000 8,773 25% Trump + 11
Arizona 6,429 8,286 29% Trump + 5
Texas 6,767 7,733 14% Trump + 14
TN 5,857 6,857 17% Trump + 30
Georgia 4,727 5,818 23% Trump + 2
CA. 2,725 2,800 3% Harris + 17
NY. 2,200 2,400 9% Harris + 10
Re: "Overdetermined"
There might not be an "if only."
J.S. Mill wrote: "He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that." Progressive elites *know little of their own side of the case* because they are 'partially' educated. They never had to reckon deeply with conservatives or populists at university because Faculty in history and in the social sciences are mostly progressive.
Progressive elites then naturally incline toward technocracy and echo-chambers in journalism. Is it any wonder, then, that progressives struggle to engineer a candidate who can prevail over a flawed but formidable populist?
Did progressive elites even ask themselves: "How may we persuade conservatives or 'uneducated' persons in the street that we respect them and want to do our level best to understand and answer their case?"
Hubris why Dems lost.